In case you have been hearing harrowing cases of mistreatment of house helps in Saudi Arabia and thought it was just the misfortune of a few, now there is a report from a human rights group illustrating a system failure.
Anyone who works as a domestic servant can be mistreated, thanks to a decades-old system called Kafala, where your employer becomes your legally recognised guardian.
In an Amnesty International report released on Tuesday, the Kafala system has been analysed, with parallels drawn to the time when slaves were shipped off the East African coast to the Arab world.
That report contains the experiences of not one; not two, but 72 women. They returned to Kenya between 2020 and 2024 after working in Saudi Arabia - some were called baboons, others were never allowed to leave the households where they worked, some were fed on leftovers and rotten food, others raped, slapped, and spat at, and some slept in prison-like rooms - among other atrocities.
“Nearly all those interviewed said they would never return to Saudi Arabia under any circumstances,” says the report titled Locked In, Left Out: The Hidden Lives of Kenyan Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia. “Many of the women described their employers calling them highly derogatory and racist names, including hayawana (animal), khaddama (servant), and sharmouta (prostitute).”
The interviewees cited deception as a key trick in getting hapless women to board aeroplanes from Kenya.
“You’re told it’s a family of five, but when you get there, it’s a father and mother and 12 kids. So, the work ends up being a lot. I was alone. I did all the housework,” one of the respondents, called Peace, told the researchers.
Jamila noted: “I was told I would have off days, but when I got there, I did not have any off day. I was to be paid SAR 1,200 (Sh41,000), but I used to be paid SAR 900 (Sh31,000). The contract further stated that I would work in a house with another worker, for eight hours only per day, but when I got there, I was the only one working in the house.”
Muna noted: “I went there as a teacher of English for a private household. But to my surprise… the lady came and introduced me, and said, ‘I have four children. You are going to attend to the children, you will attend to the beds’… I was disappointed. But I said, as long as I am here, all the way from my country, what I came [for] is money – let me persevere. When the children go to school, I continue doing all the housework.”
Catherine Eddner Adhiambo who died in Saudi Arabia on April 16, 2025.
Said Lucia: “I was informed that there would be two days off from work and that I would work as a company cleaner. But when I got to Saudi, I worked as a domestic worker in four different houses. I was informed I would be paid SAR 1,000 (Sh34,000), but I was never paid.”
In terms of mistreatment, the women mentioned rape, working for 18 hours or longer, assault, and being deducted pay for flimsy reasons, among other experiences.
Katherine, another respondent, recalled being told by her employer: “I bought you. You belong to me, and you do what I say.”
She also suffered a lot of mistreatment regarding food.
“Her (Katherine’s) employer would give her only leftovers, rotten food, or sometimes nothing at all. Katherine described how when she tried to cook for herself instead, the employer would scream at her and throw it in the bin, telling her it smelled bad. As a result, Katherine said she ‘survived on biscuits,’” says the report.
Stories of mistreatment
Yet, despite these all-too-common stories of mistreatment, more and more women still sign up to head to Saudi Arabia. According to the report, all the people who work as domestic servants in the Gulf kingdom are foreigners.
“Saudi Arabia is home to nearly four million domestic workers, including 1.2 million women and 2.7 million men from Africa and Asia, who play an essential role in enabling the country’s economic development and supporting family life,” says the report.
“Most of the women interviewed by Amnesty International migrated due to economic hardship and family support needs. With nearly 40 per cent of Kenyans living below the poverty line in 2022, the government has increasingly encouraged youth to seek jobs abroad to address high unemployment. Between 2020 and 2022, remittances from Saudi Arabia more than doubled, and Kenyan officials estimate there are up to 200,000 of its nationals residing there under regular migration status, including more than 150,000 domestic workers, most of whom are women,” it adds.
Analysing the legal framework, the report singles out the Kafala system as a key contributor to the suffering of domestic helps - same as the fact that domestic workers are not included in the country’s labour laws.
“Racism in the Gulf must be understood in the historical context of the 1,000-year trade in enslaved people from East Africa and beyond, as well as the introduction of the Kafala system in the Gulf region under British control in the early 20th century,” it states.
The Kafala system typically sees a domestic worker’s passport surrendered to the employer, and so the employee is at the employer's mercy.
“The key elements of this abusive system have included the dependence of a worker on their sponsor to enter the country, obtain their visa and renew their residence permit, as well as the requirements for an employer to give permission before a worker may leave the country or change jobs,” says the report. “In the few instances where one of the women dared to inquire about their passport, their employers told them it was a rule to stop them from running away.”
Phones and internet access are also restricted, leaving the workers marooned in a foreign land.
Diana Chepkemoi at their Chelaino village in Bomet county on September 9, 2022. She was saved from her Saudi employer thanks to a photo of her emaciated body that she posted online and went viral.
“The system effectively grants enormous power to employers and leaves migrant workers acutely at risk of abuse, exploitation and discrimination. It essentially absolves the government from exercising its proper role in regulating employment and ensuring the protection of migrant workers, while creating a deeply imbalanced relationship between workers and employers. By enabling employers to exercise significant control over the life of the worker, the system directly enables forced labour and other serious human rights abuses,” the report notes.
The 96-page document is calling for the total dismantling of the Kafala system. Mr Houghton Irungu, the Executive Director for Amnesty International Kenya, noted in a statement to newsrooms that Saudi authorities should “fully dismantle the Kafala sponsorship system that binds foreign workers to employers, fosters exploitation and perpetuates systemic racism”.
Exploitation
Other countries where the Kafala system operates, the report says, are Qatar and Lebanon.
It notes: “Black women are particularly at risk of abuse and exploitation in the Kafala system, as it gives such a significant degree of power to employers, who then act on racialised and gendered stereotypes that devalue black women’s labour, and characterise them as servile. Operating in a context of institutionalised racism, these women have fewer financial and other resources at their disposal, and little opportunity for remedy.”
Noting a series of law changes to improve the welfare of migrant workers in Saudi (among them a 2021 legislation and another introduced in 2025), Amnesty International says the authorities are not doing enough to protect workers. The 2025 National Policy for the Elimination of Forced Labour, the organisation says, “lacks clarity on the implementation mechanisms required to ensure enforcement, compliance and accountability”.
Besides dismantling the Kafala system, Amnesty International has also made a recommendation that domestic workers in Saudi Arabia be brought under the labour laws. It also wants timely follow-ups on abuse reports, investigation and penalisation of abusive employers, and enforcement of the latest regulations on domestic workers.
Work abroad
Kenya has also been put to task by Amnesty International. As the country encourages more of its people to work abroad, Amnesty International says, it should work with Saudi Arabia to ensure clear safeguards, regulate the recruitment processes in a better way, and give resources to its embassies “to ensure timely and effective support to migrant domestic workers in distress”.
Kenya should also help reintegrate those who return, the report says.
Amnesty International says it contacted Saudi authorities for a comment on initiatives to register contracts and safeguard workers’ wages. Kenyan authorities equally did not give a response to the report’s findings.
We end this with a disclosure made by a woman named Blessing to the researchers:
“I was told to never wash my clothes with the washing machine or even use the dryer because I can never mix their clothes, for I am a maid and an African - a dirty person. They bought separate basins and buckets specifically for washing my own clothes and for me to use. They bought separate sets of dinner utensils for me only to use, not to mix with theirs in any way.”
